Creating Effective Base Designs: The Basics

In Clash of Clans, creating bases and new layouts is one of the most important and integral parts of playing. It is what keeps things fun and enjoyable, and most of all, keeps the game exciting and fun for all of us. Our base is what protects our hard-earned resources and/or maintains the prestige of a high Trophy count, and that is why it is so important to have a good base.

This is a very basic guide aimed to give describe basic principles of base building, as well as basic things not to do. This guide will also highlight common mistakes in base building/remaking.

Often it is easier to defend two storages compared to four; for that reason, I personally find keeping just one of each resource storage is optimal until such time as the additional storages are necessary to amass the required resources for higher-level upgrades.

It's also important to know that enemies can spawn in the area surrounding the zone where you can move your buildings. Also, enemies can spawn on natural Obstacles (rocks, trees, etc.), so don't use them as part of your Walls. Similarly, don't use buildings as part of your Walls, as units can walk around the grass surrounding the building. When building your base, you should keep in mind that for every structure/Wall you put down, it creates a spawn denial zone that is 1 unit on each side of the building. This means don't leave 3 by 3 holes (or larger ones) inside your base! This can allow enemies to bypass your Walls.

It's also important to know that there are two main types of bases used in Clash of Clans, with another base type, the hybrid, having features of both. The first type, and the most common, is the defensive base. This base will have a Town Hall in the center, well protected. The player is aiming to gain Trophies by trying to win as much as possible on defense. Another type of base is a farming base. In this base, resource storages are at the center, and the Town Hall is slightly closer to the edge of the base! At first, this may seem outrageous; why would you do such a thing? Well, it's for a simple reason. Town Halls contains less loot, while the storages contain more. This means you will lose the battle more frequently, and some Trophies, but you now have a shield (if more than 30% damage is done) or a village guard, protecting your Resources from attack. This strategy is used to accumulate and protect Resources as much as possible, allowing a player to buy upgrades and new buildings faster.

Part 2: What Not To Do

While learning basic principles are important, it is equally important learning to correct many common mistakes made in base building; many of which, you'll notice, are similar to principles in the first part.

Making one single 'cell' protected by walls. This is commonly done by many to protect all of their buildings, usually done in a rectangle. Why is this bad? Using a single cell is a poor idea because a single breach in the wall will result in the breach of your entire base, something easily done. Also, your defenses can all be accessed once this single wall is destroyed, without walls to slow down the giants. An easy fix to this problem is kicking out non-necessary buildings, such as barracks or army camps, to save walls, and segmenting your base so that defenses and resource storages are better protected. This is understandably difficult for very low TH levels, such as 2 or 3, but afterwards, one should really look for ways to make multiple pockets in their base. This both slows enemy attacks and better protects your buildings.

Another common mistake is spreading out buildings too much. This is a bad idea because while it does create a larger spawn denial zone, it doesn't do anything with it. Yes, enemies spawn farther away, but that doesn't mean anything if enemy Troops can pick off buildings without return fire. It is best to make a base as compact as possible, so defensive buildings can better cover the rest of your buildings.

Generally, separating your base into two or more sections is also a bad idea. Why? Because when someone attacks half your base, the defenses in the other half aren't doing anything!

An extremely common mistake is placing all your buildings to one side or corner of the base, then placing Walls facing the center of the build zone. This is bad because enemies can spawn in the area next to the forest, and can completely avoid your Walls!

Finally, one more mistake many make is to upgrade their Town Halls too early. This is not a major hindrance early on, but towards the later parts of the game, it is a huge problem. Why is this? When you upgrade your Town Hall, you cause the players you can attack and will be attacked by to be higher leveled. This is because when you attack a player 2+ town hall levels below you, you receive 50% or less of what you would normally receive. You also increase the cost in gold of search for new opponents, but that doesn't become a big factor until much later.

Revising Your Base

Every base can be revised, particularly if you're just starting out. It's also a great idea for you to ask others for their ideas, especially if they have more experience than you do. A great way to improve your base is to get advice from better players. For this reason, you could always go on websites such as the Supercell forums, or the Clash of Clans subreddit for HIMBs. You can always ask members of your Clan too! (Assuming you have one, of course.)

Conclusion

Well, I hope you all enjoyed reading this guide, and learned some helpful tips from it! The most important part of base design to remember, though, is to have fun while doing it!

I would also love feedback from players for more things to include, as I couldn't possibly have covered everything that newer players need to know.

Lastly, please do not make content edits without asking me first, I don't mind minor grammatical errors, but please contact me before making a content change.